TROY -- The two things that everyone in the audience of Thursday night's Troy City Council meeting wanted to talk about were the two things that Council President Lynn Kopka, D-At Large, said did not need to be discussed: grievances with reassessment and the draft of a letter in support of the NY SAFE Act from the City Council, which originally stated it was speaking on behalf of the entire city.

Kopka informed the 75-plus person audience that those with issues or questions regarding the reassessment should follow the directions on the assessment letters sent out in recent days by the city and attend upcoming meetings and workshops. During the lengthy reassessment process, it had been noted that some homeowners' assessments would go down, some would stay the same and some would go up. Despite Kopka's housekeeping preface, it was mainly the latter that spoke their minds during the public input portion of the nearly hour-and-a-half meeting.

"I love this city. But it seems I may have to move out of it," said a 5th Avenue resident. The 73-year-old said she had lived in Troy for a few decades but her taxes are now $6,600 more than they were last year. "It almost gave me a heart attack, which is not good for a 73-year-old woman."

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Giving a passionate speech to the council, she started to cry as she talked about how her home had become a refuge and she does not want to move, but that is one of the options she is faced with - along with continuing to work even though she had planned to retire. "Maybe someone will buy it and pay the $13,000 in taxes. But I don't know who would do that," she said, also bringing up that, to her, it made no sense that the assessment for her house would go up while the assessment for the Verizon building would go down, even after the city invested money into it to make renovations and improvements.

But one Lansingburgh resident pointed out that the process is, indeed, equalizing the taxes paid throughout the city. He said that those whose taxes went up had been paying below their fair share and those whose taxes are going down are now getting a break after paying more than they should have been.

"There are just as many people who have been overtaxed for years," he said.

Still multiple other speakers, including former councilman Michael LoPorto, said the reassessment was wrong but hoped the tax rate would at least go down.

Charlene Dobert of Stowe Avenue said many in the city were already paying for upkeep of houses that are more than 100 years old. "It's a slap in the face, with such exorbitant rates," she said.

And a resident on 2nd Street, after conducting extensive research of his own, could not find homes in his neighborhood that had been bought or sold for the figure that his home is now assessed. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how they came up with these numbers," he said. "How did my house appreciate 300 percent in 10 years? It doesn't make sense. And I'm not going to be able to stay."

LoPorto added, "We spent $1 million to have people punished. It was wrong."

Kopka said after the meeting that she was also going to file a grievance for her Washington Park property. Her assessment went up from $250,000 to $408,000. She said she wished that reassessment had gone through during Mark Pattison's administration since the affects on residents have only increased since then.

NY SAFE Act Letter

Kopka informed the audience, at the start of the meeting, that a letter in support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's NY SAFE Act that had been distributed was only a draft and was not the final copy. She said that they have since taken out the part in the first paragraph which stated that the letter was being sent on behalf of the entire city.

Councilman Gary Galuski, D-District 6, said sending the letter to everyone on the council was the "right thing to do" but now the council is being scrutinized for a draft letter since it was leaked by one of the council members. He and Kopka alluded that the person who leaked the letter was in the council's Republican minority. They also said that the draft "had" to be signed because of the inner politics of the council and since that was the only way business could be done.

Kopka said that she took into consideration the input given at the meeting for the final draft.

Multiple residents said they would vote the council members out if such a letter was sent.

The local law which would enact and create a parolee registration was tabled at the finance committee meeting. Kopka said that the council would be meeting in the next couple weeks with the parties involved - including the police department officials who had initiated the discussions of the registration.